I have observed an interesting paradox in my work with leadership teams around the world.

The more successful an organization becomes, the more deeply it tends to believe in the assumptions that produced that success.

After all, why question something that has worked so well?

The problem is that those assumptions gradually become invisible boundaries, defining what leaders consider possible and worth pursuing.  This is why I challenge executives with the wise, old maxim:

You can't see the label if you're inside the jar.

The real challenge of market transformation is not coming up with more innovative ideas. It's recognizing that the boundaries within which you are searching for those ideas may themselves be obsolete.

So from the perspective of future-shaping strategy, the most valuable person in the room is not the one with the deepest industry expertise, but the one who asks the seemingly absurd questions.

Here's a question worth bringing to your next leadership meeting:

What are we exceptionally good at today that may be preventing us from seeing our greatest opportunity of tomorrow?

#Leadership #Strategy #Transformation